Cover Story - Top 15 Basil Gogos Covers

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This weekend the world lost a titan of illustration and horror- Basil Gogos.  Gogos was one of the fundamental names in horror artwork; his style was unique and widely influential in a way that few others have ever managed.  He’s also one of a lot of artists that don't get brought up nearly enough due to how much his work was instrumental in defining a previous era.  Gogos’ greatest volume of published work with the farthest reaching impact was unquestionably his huge collection of cover art produced for Famous Monsters of Filmland.  

Famous Monsters was a horror/monster/schlock magazine that first saw print in 1958 and basically invented the horror movie subculture.  In the days before the Internet stuff like Famous Monsters was the only way horror fans could interact with other fans or even get a hint of the horror landscape beyond their own personal borders and it helped inspire a lot of fans turned creators over the years.  So, today we honor a great man and his great legacy with the top 15 Basil Gogos covers of Famous Monsters of Film Land.

Static Thoughts - Kong: King of the Apes

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So, a new King Kong film is upon us.  Kong: Skull Island will be the third official attempt to relaunch the King Kong franchise after the first remake in 1976 by Italian mega-producer Dino De Laurentiis and the 2005 remake by Peter Jackson.  Kong has enjoyed plenty of other revivals well outside those films, though, as any giant ape fan will let you know.  Most famous among these would be King Kong vs. Godzilla, a Japanese co-production that was so successful it landed Kong his own animated TV show. 

However, the King Kong Japanimated show wasn’t the only time he came to the small screen.  No, I’m referring to last year’s Kong: King of the Apes, an American/Japanese/Canadian CGI-animated series for Netflix that premiered April 15, 2016.  It’s a 13 episode block of CGI ape adventures that pit Kong and a cast of human heroes against an army of robot dinosaurs in power armor in the strange and crazy world of 2050.  Given that we’re about to give Kong another shot on the big screen I thought it’d be fun to dive into what might be the strangest corner of his franchise, which is impressive given he once fought his own robot double as built by Doctor Who. 

Filmland - 8 Kaiju That Should Join the MonsterVerse

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We’re now a couple weeks out from Kong: Skull Island, the 2^nd installment of Legendary’s proposed “Monster-Universe” of films.  For those not in the know, this is a planned shared universe of giant monsters movies that’s been in the works for a while now.  The concept originated with Legendary’s desire to reboot Godzilla for the modern blockbuster age when they came across the script for Pacific Rim.  They like some of the concepts but ultimately ended up deciding to make a Marvel-style shared universe instead.  The first installment in this was 2014’s Godzilla, directed by Garreth Edwards, which wasn’t great. 

However, Kong: Skull Island looks fresh and Godzilla: King of Monsters is showing a lot of promise, bringing in Michael Dougherty, director of Krampus and Trick r Treat, as a new director along with three classic monsters in Rodan, Mothra, and Ghidorah.  All of this is leading up to an eventual King Kong vs. Godzilla remake, though there’s plenty of room for franchise expansion beyond that.  That subject of franchise development is what I’m here to talk about today with 8 classic Toho Kaiju who should appear next in the giant monster-verse. 

Kong: Skull Island Trailer 2 Analysis

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One of the more obnoxious trends of the 2010s is every studio under the sun trying to scare up a bit of the Marvel shared universe magic.  While I like the Marvel movies, I do think people put a little too much stock in their shared universe angle being why they’re successful.  The truth is that if Iron Man, Avengers, or Civil War hadn’t been good movies all the continuity in the world wouldn’t have saved them; see The Incredible Hulk. 

While there are a lot of reasons studios have come to obsess over shared universes none of them seem to be the thing that actually makes shared universes fun.  See, studios love shared universes for the online marketing hype machine of clues and threads or the way it brings syndicated storytelling to the movies, making films binge-able when the thing that makes them fun is that they allow several different genres to co-exist.  This is where Kong: Skull Island comes in. 

Kong: Skull Island First Trailer

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Edited by Robert Beach

One of the more bizarre stories of the 21^st century is the bizarre disconnect between the companies that make movies and the companies that simply finance and distribute them. This has become an even more central part of the story of film production in the age of franchises and sagas where every studio is looking for their multi-film, years-long movie series. 

The most recent example of this would have to be the case of Legendary Entertainment, who recently broke with former partners Warner Brothers and had spent the last three years trying to prove themselves a viable investment through their growing slate of prospective giant monster movies. 

This started in 2013 with their push for Pacific Rim and then broke into the big time in 2014 with Godzilla. Godzilla’s the film that proved them a solvent business, so in 2015, they announced plans for a whole slate of Kaiju flicks based around Godzilla 2, Kong: Skull Island, and finally a remake of King Kong vs. Godzilla. This year, we’ve got our first look at that ambitious plan with the debut trailer for Kong: Skull Island. 

John Boyega Joining Pacific Rim 2 Changes Everything

Edited by Robert Beach 

John Boyega, a talented actor who finally broke into the mainstream in last year’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens, has finally landed his first major post-Star Wars gig with Pacific Rim 2. The shaky sequel to 2013’s international hit has cast Boyega as the son of Idris Elba’s Stacker Pentecost from the first movie. This is a major announcement and a major stroke of good fortune for Pacific Rim 2. 

Since the announcement, the film's production has been on unstable footing after the Pacific Rim animated series dissolved on top of creator/director Guillermo Del Toro announced he wasn’t returning to direct the sequel, leading Legendary to drop any concrete premiere date for the film. Speaking of premiere dates, it was Godzilla 2 that slipped into Pacific Rim 2’s place on the schedule, forming an interesting rivalry. Additionally, Godzilla 2 is also facing down trouble as director Gareth Edwards won’t be returning for the sequel to his 2014 kaiju blockbuster. 

Movie Monthly - King Kong (2005)

Peter Jackson’s King Kong is a film that’s always sort of haunted me.  In case you don’t remember this movie was huge when it came out, dominating a lot of the film conversation that year as well as landing #5 at the year-end box office round up.  It was Jackson’s first post-Lord of the Rings effort and clearly cost unfathomable amounts of money to produce with a lot of CGI work that was top notch, cutting edge for the time.  And despite all these factors, any impact it might’ve had was wiped away within just a couple of years.  Nowadays people don’t even bring up King Kong ’05 as an example of talent gone awry like that same year’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or as an example of major film with no impact like we regard Avatar.  What is it about this movie that makes it so completely forgotten by popular culture?  Let’s find out. 

Panel Vision - Kaijumax

Kaijumax is a comic about a prison for giant monsters that draws heavy inspiration from the various films of Toho Studio’s Godzilla franchise.  The series itself is a great, a winning combination of clever visual gags an meaningful writing that knows how to get the most out of its characters and ideas.  Being a big fan of the Godzilla franchise I thought I’d talk about the various films that Kaijumax is drawing inspiration from, especially with this week’s issue.  In case you haven’t read my mini-review this latest issue puts the series focus on three quasi-new characters of the series.

 There’s Mecha-Zon, a robot monster built by humans to destroy Kaiju but who has turned against mankind and renounced violence, Whoofy, a the bumbling and comical son of Ape-Whale, one of the resident kings of the Kaijumax, and Jeong, son of Kaijumax’s Warden Kang and one of the facilities most powerful guards, able to transform into a monster-sized superhero.  Each of these characters has a key parallel from the Godzilla franchise and even though Kaijumax and I’m going to talk about them, starting with Mecha-Zon and his counterpart Mechagodzilla.